Tiger Escapes From Tarzan

FLORIDA - The State - In Brief

July 13, 2004

LOXAHATCHEE -- A tiger escaped Monday from the home of an actor who played Tarzan, leading deputies and wildlife officers on a search to find the big cat.

The 6-year-old tiger was reported missing about 3 p.m. from the actor's residence, near a wilderness area about 15 miles west of West Palm Beach, said Paul Miller, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

When the first deputies arrived on the scene, the cat jumped on top of their car, Miller said.

The animal belongs to Steve Sipek, who portrayed Tarzan under the screen name Steve Hawkes in movies made in the late 1960s, Miller said.

Officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and county deputies were armed with tranquilizer guns and searched with a helicopter and on the ground.

Sipek has another tiger, two lions, a black leopard and a cougar on his 5-acre property, The Palm Beach Post reported.

The cats, mostly castoffs from zoos, are in a mazelike series of interlocking cages.